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any takers so far? caught it Thursday night and have thought about little else since.
always been a Fincher fan but thought this was incredible. popcorn-y but smart.
general reaction, reading on Twitter etc seems to be either 'wow' or 'what the fuck..'
or a mixture of both.

They made a big fuss about how Gilluan Flynn had written the screenplay with a different ending to the book, but what I've heard, that's just a double bluff and it's the same. Guess it gets more people headed to the cinema. Can't decide if that's really cheeky or quite cool.

Cracking film though. It didn't feel super misogo beyond the obvious discomfort maybe with having that character do the things it does at a time when there's so much (correct) focus on dv and women's testimony? IDK. talking to the book readers almost made me wish I'd read first but otoh I was just transfixed and super tense through the whole thing whereas they were just along for the ride.

the film is almost faithful to a fault. However,folk who haven't read the book seem to think that the film delivers on its own merits. I'd like to see Fincher get back to doing a movie from an original screenplay.

i think the much-talked-about 'cool girl' or certainly some elements from that passage in the book and film, are really based on a woman's (or at least an American woman's) fantasy, of what they think a man's fantasy might be. i'm not.. too aware of many men who want a woman who burps, plays poker and stuffs her face with 'chili dogs'
etc, although i'm sure some people do but it's hardly a phenomenon. and certainly not what you'd associate with being 'cool'.

To me it just felt like a really glossy take on trashy films like Basic Instinct and Body Of Evidence, except it took itself VERY seriously. Within 20 minutes it was obvious what had actually happened and it just didn't really go any deeper for me - there was paper-thin touching on the idea of multiple points of view and unreliable narratives, and how public perception can be crucial and can be changed, and how the audience's sympathies could be manipulated, but it was just doodles, rather than proper explorations. If they really wanted to push the idea of Amy being calculating, they fudged her with too much left unplanned and too much to improvise for her to be a true successor and as iconic as Bridget Gregory/Wendy Kroy from The Last Seduction.

I found myself laughing at the film as it got further and further in because of the huge plot holes and badly realised twists. I don't expect a film like this to be 100% watertight, but the ham-fisted ending felt like they'd written themselves into a corner. My particular highlight was her being allowed home from the hospital covered in Desi's blood. But it's a metaphor! Gimme a break.

Aside from all that, I just felt that after the first half an hour I didn't really care what happened to Ben Affleck's character or Rosamund Pike's. I'm not one of those people who dislikes films when I don't like a character or if I find characters unsympathetic, but I just found that outside of the sister and the police officer, I wasn't interested in finding out about the stories of anybody else in the film.

Given that Fincher has been involved in House Of Cards and the like, I just thought that it might have been better as, or more suited to, a TV series, a bit like Murder One or True Detective. This didn't feel meaty enough for a film, but also too brief to explore the different things it had the potential to do.

It's true that virtually all the female characters are shown as unsympathetic (being either cold, manipulative or plan stupid), but then again, virtually all of the men are too. This comes with a huge caveat though: the only characters that aren't unsympathatic are: Nick's dad, who apparently in the book has a nasty history of violence and misogyny, but which is excised in the film; the rational, buttoned up, professional, unemotional (eg 'male') female detective; and the sister who I (apparently correctly) assumed was a lesbian.

Far more worrying though is that the film plays along with the myth that false rape claims are easy and that they stick. We know that Amy has lots of money and is as a result powerful enough to probably make the justice system take them seriously, but I just felt that it would give unnecessary succor to MRA-types who believe that it happens far more frequently that it actually does.

the sister was the moral centre of the film and the detective was the most professional and competent character, and likeable too. Describing her appearance and demeanour as "male" seems more sexist than anything in the film. Also deserves kudos for Tyler Perry's character too.

she was a woman from the film, apart from the fact that she was played by a female actor. That might sound odd, but it just struck me as a rather one-dimensional way to present her character.

Tyler Perry was excellent, I thought, but again, he is shown as being deeply cynical (or a realist, if you like) and also unable to control the narrative of the case. He was definitely one of the films best characters.

I still don't get what you mean about the detective not being portrayed as a woman? What do you think was missing that somehow made her a female character in your eyes? She was a female character played by a woman, surely that's all it takes?

against Fincher for making all of the female characters cold, manipulative or stupid. I'm saying that the detective isn't like this, but that whether her character is male or female is rendered practically irrelevant by the film. I just felt that it's not enough of a good example if you were going to counter those charges by claiming that Fincher can 'write' women.

As I say, I think that just about every character is unsympathetic, male and female, and so the charges of misogyny relating to that aren't the ones that stand up, in my opinion, but I'd also argue that the (two) sympathetic female characters are not necessarily great examples with with to argue against the charge either.

that's EXACTLY what more films should be doing! The point of things like the Bechdel test is that there needs to be more women police officers, neighbours, slobby best mates, bosses, etc in films, just like in real life.

True characters are the sum of all their parts - not just a blank role divorced from the world they inhabit. I just felt that it looked like Fincher had to minimise anything that placed her as a woman in this world so that he could portray her as sympathetic.

Gillian Flynn wrote both the book and the screenplay, and all the characters were pretty much the same in the book (except Nick, who seemed nicer in the film).

I still don't get your argument though. Her character wasn't 'woman', it was 'detective', I don't think they needed to make her more female in any way. Unlike Gravity, where George Clooney was 'astronaut' and Sandra Bullock was 'crying emotional mother who's crap at engineering'.

I've said that the charge of the film being misogynistic because of there not being any sympathetic female characters doesn't really stand up because just about every character, male or female, is unsympathetic.

Some people are arguing though that a character like the detective shows that Fincher/Flynn can portray sympathetic female characters. I'd argue that all this character shows is that they can portray a detective.

If you establish it as a common narrative, don't comment on its implausibility and allow the myth to persist, then people who believe in the myth automatically find reassurance in the fact that there are others perpetuating the same narrative. Also don't forget that fictional stories are one of the main sources for the myth in the first place.

one film can't establish anything as a common narrative
this film is outrageously implausible
this film is not the cause for any myths which might exist
this film is not responsible for stopping them from existing

Not sure what you're implying really - that films shouldn't be allowed to include plot points (inc. characters) of a type that you're politically opposed to?

I mean I obviously understand where you're coming from with being horrified by victim-blaming culture and seeing the absurdity of MRA groups and the like, but this seems like a bit of a dead-end intellectually.

I really loved the darkly comic tone running throughout, and in a way it saved the film a bit after it stopped being about the mystery. I remember thinking, during the massive bit of exposition partway through that "well, this was nice while it lasted", but the film does a really good job of being focusing and strengthening on some of the more absurd / satirical elements.

I saw the wood shed as being quite a playful reference to 'Se7en', too (though I've not seen that film, but it seemed blatant to me), which I quite liked.

Good film; wasn't expecting it to enjoy it on quite the levels that I did. Kinda makes me want to watch The Social Network again, too.

A marriage can be a scam or a trap, or both at the same time. Like this. This story is too much convoluted but makes us think about about some marriages of modern times and it's evident the power of influence of the media in the construction of the scam.

Definitely agree that, as a whole, it struck me as ultimately being a black comedy / satire more than anything else.

I can very sort of see where some of the misogyny accusations are coming from, but only because of the fact that it could unfortunately give fuel to stupid MRA people (this is something that irked me a tiny bit at points, which frustrated me a bit, cause it's not strictly the film's fault). I thought a lot of the film (those elements included) served to create a really tense, and darkly funny examination on how everything is played out in the media.

mostly loved it, incredibly tense all the way through but it's knowingness to take the piss out of both fiction and non-fiction and blur them into one was masterful. Of course it's exaggerated, it's a myth, but the whole film is about myths and performance in a modern age of social media and 24hour news.

Think the way Amy re-wrote her life from having it written for her from her parents (who I think were silently the bad guys in all of this) was great and re-claiming her life against the threat of sexual violence.

Pretty bad, if it had ended after the first reveal it would have been an ok little film but then it got stupid. Preferred side effects as a similar film (also bad). Liked the lawyer though. Think Trent reznor and atticus must have watched a rough cut realised it was bad and just phoned in the music.

thought affleck played his part very well as did pike (although as marckee alluded to she was a kinda up market catherine trammel from basic instinct), the lawyer was good fun as well.
Longer than i was expecting but as with most fincher films it zipped along nicely.
Neil Patrick Harris (who i think is generally very watchable) didn't cut it for me here.

I read the book and was so completely disappointed with the ending. It felt like such an anti-climax. I suppose because I knew what was happening and what was going on in the background, it didn't feel very tense to me at all. I had a few moments where I got goosebumps.

Was I the only person who laughed at the first chin reference? The cinema was SILENT.

Ben Affleck was brilliant and definitely portrayed Nick so well. Andie was exactly how I imagined. NPH shouldn't have been cast as Desi though. He's a great actor and pulled it off but you can't look at him without thinking of his HIMYM character. His final scene though - wow.

It stayed very true to the book though which was great. The parents were exactly how I thought of them to be.

I was never really convinced that he had done anything in the opening act, I very much had the impression that he's an asshole who had mistreated her but never once thought he'd actually have killed her. I dunno if that was me being over-analytical or the film already weaving it's very subtle magic wand or both but yeah, I wasn't that surprised to see her alive in fact I kinda expected it.

Was how quickly he jumped to calling the cops re: her disappearance. I would have thought that if he walked in to see the mess on the floor the next thought would be to check around the neighbours or go to the office or to his Dad's house. You wouldn't want to assume the worst. It was all a bit: Walk through the door, see the stuff on the floor "Oh she's been kidnapped" call the cops.

he walks in, sees the table contents on the floor - the table is even back to normal - and immediatly jumps to 'My wife's been kidnapped'. It's just not normal behaviour. You would never want to jump to such a negative straight off the bat.

Dunno, it's already a really long movie for that sort of thriller so I just figured the point was to cut to the chase as quickly as possible. I think I saw comment saying that it did more than most series manage in two seasons. Possibly a bit harsh but I think we are used to a certain slowness now thanks to long-running TV shows.

Because the conversation he has with the cops straight off is about his wife missing - they feel the iron/ask about the dress/start immediatly tagging all the things that seem out the ordinary. Plus these cops are detectives and not the police who would respond to a break in.

saw this last night. Unsure what all the fuss is about to be honest. It's a high-quality production, brilliantly acted and zips along at a fair old pace but... the whole `satire of modern relationships` angle was very heavy-handed and it didn't hang together as an especially incisive take on anything. Reasonably entertaining, with some definite high spots, but... all in a competent/underwhelming thriller I suppose.

I get the feeling it wanted to be all like `hey we're hitting some really heavy truths about marriage/psychology here!!!` but it failed hard on that score.

Really wish it had ramped up the trashiness and been a bit more OTT to be honest. Would absolutely love to see what someone like Pedro Almodovar had done with the source material for example.

Wish I hadn't read it as well because I'm not really sure how well the first half played out in terms of making you believe he did it given I know he didn't. Felt all the Rosamund Pike bits pre 'reveal' were way too obviously fake and wooden but don't know if that was because I already knew or if it was a genuine issue.

those early scenes where they are reminiscing on the early days of their relationship are intentionally overly romaticised, because they're from the perspective of Ann's "character" that she's playing out in the false diaries.

tbh I think most people figure out pretty quickly that Nick hasn't done (dunne) anything pretty much straight away

the way I read the whole film (and after, book) was to not trust anything that was going on and just let it wash over you, it's all false and really more about performances (I felt), I think those kinda details you speak of are more interesting on repeat viewings.

I think I just took them at face value. Did we have a conversation on here about whether or not you try to work out a plot as you watch films? I'm not that sort of person, so I think I just trusted that something would happen.